I cannot find no fucks as there were no fucks given when the coding of this project took place.

As for the title… I just call things as I see them… So if it made you rage because you were on that dev team at that time, think back… can you find the fucks that should have been given? Didn’t think so…

Development Archeology
Context: This is a part that was written for a VSCode performance guide I was writing. The final product? I crystal clear picture, of exactly what went down as it went down during the development of VSCode. By putting the puzzle together of a couple of, what the average person would consider to be entirely random… was ANYTHING but that. The corporate politics, the workplace feuds that were happening at the time of when the code was written, was real, and it was clear as day. After typing it all out and articulating it, followed up with thinking on it. I found it to be interesting enough to convert the format to place it here. This code was written what, 10 years ago… and it feels like I was there… in that office with these devs… when these events took place. Development archeology does not obviously exist, but… it was fun taking this trip back in time though. Without further ado…
FACEPALM PT2: Development Archeology
The Ball Started Rolling…

We got the ball started… and honestly, it’s easier to keep pushing that ball than to dive head‑first into another direction. Slightly off‑topic for the exact scope of this series, but hey — when in Rome, right?

If you’re a VS Code extension dev, I swear I didn’t plan to write this. So… yeah, skip this section too.
The Hash Algorithm From Hell

I finally found and gained access to the last values no extension dev normally has access to. The problem? VS Code implemented some god‑awful hashing algorithm, and the result of that hash determines the folder name where the values I needed were stored.

Naturally, the “proper” approach would be:

reverse engineer the algo

figure out the salt

yada yada

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I tried once — didn’t put much effort in. Then I enlisted seven different AI engines to crack it. Not a single one could figure it out.

Today, I was back in there again… staring at this weird little file I noticed months ago. A file that bothered me then, and now suddenly made everything click.

The file: workspace.json The content:

{ “folder”: “file:///f%3A/DevStack” }

One value. One plain‑text string. And then it hit me:

If I couldn’t reverse engineer that hash algo… If seven pattern‑matching AIs couldn’t reverse engineer it…

What are the chances VS Code’s own devs could?
The Workaround They Left Behind

Some senior dev clearly created a hash algo so complicated that even his colleagues couldn’t figure out where the hell they were in their own file system.

Their solution?

“Screw it — let’s just drop a plain‑text string in a JSON file.”

And that’s exactly what workspace.json is.

Once I realized this, everything fell into place. VS Code triggers certain functionality before the extension host starts. That means it edits at least one value in the DB file I want access to. By the time my extension kicks off, that tiny edit pops the folder off the stack and pushes it to the top.

Sort folders by “date modified”? Boom — 99% of the time, the folder I need is sitting right there.

To confirm, I just bring the workspace name with me — because it’s stored in plain text in that tiny file. If the first folder doesn’t match, that means multiple instances were opened within a one‑second window. So I check the next folder. Eventually, I hit the right one.

And then? I get full read/write access to the workspace’s database and context system.
The Dev Who Wrote This Was Fuming

Inside the hash algo source file, before and after every tiny function, there’s this warning:

// !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! // NOTE: DO NOT CHANGE. IDENTIFIERS HAVE TO REMAIN STABLE // !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Not once. Not twice. Four times in a 102‑line file.

This wasn’t documentation. This was a dev screaming:

“FUCK OFF OR DIE, BITCHES.”

The level of anger when those warnings were written? This dude was fuming at his desk.

And honestly, reading the algo, I get why the devs after him had issues. I imagine a senior dev took this on thinking he could solve it in a week, pushed it, then quit for greener pastures — leaving everyone else scratching their heads.
The Second Facepalm

This hash algo — their solution for generating unique workspace IDs — didn’t even need to exist.

VS Code has two context systems:

The workspace’s settings.json

The hidden workspace DB locked behind the hash algo

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The secondary sidebar, the panel, and other UI state values are stored in that DB. They should have been in settings.json inside the workspace’s .vscode folder.

Nothing in that DB needs to be there. I’ve read it enough times to say that confidently.

Because extensions couldn’t access it, every extension dev built mirror context systems, trying (and failing) to replicate VS Code’s UI state.

Until now.
A Hostile Development Environment

This whole situation exposes exactly what was happening during VS Code’s development:

Devs dropping workarounds for other devs, right out in the open and not caring if it's even found

Systems built on top of systems nobody understood

Zero documentation

Zero passion

Zero fucks given

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If I were the dev who wrote the hash algo, and a coworker bypassed my entire implementation with a workaround? Fists would be flying. HR would be like: “Do not pass go. You’re fired.”

Jokes aside — it was clearly a hostile environment. Or at minimum, hostile for this particular dev.
The Product Suffers Because of It

When you look at VS Code through this lens, everything clicks:

The performance issues

The bizarre architecture

The unnecessary complexity

The missing optimizations

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This product wasn’t built with love. It was built with frustration, workarounds, and a marketing team that later slapped the label “IDE” on what is, in reality, a glorified text editor.
VS Code Is the GitHub of Text Editors

GitHub: You download a .txt file. You upload a .txt file. That’s the whole platform.

A .tsx file? Just a renamed .txt file.

VS Code? The GitHub of text editors.

If Notepad added a file explorer sidebar? BAM — VS Code 2.0.

Mean? Maybe. Wrong? Not really.

Even in 1998, VS Code wouldn’t have been impressive:

Syntax highlighting existed

File explorers existed

Search existed

Memory usage was sane

Notepad used 2MB

UltraEdit used 10MB

EditPlus used 5MB

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VS Code is a text editor marketed as an IDE, built by a dev team that clearly didn’t like each other, and maintained by people who inherited a mess.
The Click Moment

Once you understand the environment this product came from, you understand why the optimizations we need today must be made — because the original devs didn’t make them.

And now, thanks to one angry dev’s workaround, we can bypass the entire hashing system and finally access the workspace context values that should’ve been accessible from day one.
One sec…

…
I’m just… trying… to find the…

fucks that were given at the time of development… or any time during this products life cycle…
HEY, there we go… that’s what we needed right there…

Squints eyes, trying to look more closely…

wait, wait…

nope, that was just some fluff…

I cannot find no fucks as there were no fucks given when the coding of this project took place.